Spending time with the aristocracy, of other historical periods or in our own gilded age, can be pleasurable in its way - all that luxury and indolent ease. But you are expected to care about their personal problems.

That's the conflict at the heart of "Anna Karenina" - not Tolstoy's great novel, of course, but the alluring and frustrating opera newly drawn from it by composer David Carlson, which had its West Coast premiere Saturday night at Opera San Jose.

Carlson's score, written in a plush neo-Romantic style, embodies all the most appealing qualities of life among the leisure class. His melodies, parceled out among a series of carefully delineated arias and ensembles, are gracefully shaped and often beautiful in their outline. The harmonic language is pungent without being too elusive, the orchestral writing colorful, the rhythmic palette varied.

But those virtues are lavished on a tale that, in this attenuated telling, feels uneasily like a soap opera. There is a large cast of characters and some supporting drama, but in essence this is the story of a young woman who escapes her unhappy marriage through an adulterous liaison and comes to a sorry end.

Perhaps it was inevitable that so much of the psychological and philosophical bounty of Tolstoy's masterpiece should be jettisoned from Colin Graham's libretto. No opera short of Wagnerian proportions could have done justice to this source.

But "Anna Karenina," which premiered three years ago at the Florida Grand Opera in Miami, feels particularly telegraphic. It unfolds in a series of short, almost brusque tableaux that are often emotionally evocative, thanks to Carlson's tender insight. But from a dramatic standpoint these are mostly reference points for an audience presumed to be familiar with the novel.

Fortunately, the San Jose production is first-rate - a visual and vocal delight, as well as a reminder that this company is capable of more than just the Puccini and Rossini chestnuts that tend to make up the bulk of its annual offerings.

Conductor Stewart Robertson, who led the Florida premiere, paces things with patience and clarity, drawing vivid colors from his reduced orchestral forces. The staging by director Brad Dalton is crisp and direct, and the physical production (sets by Steven C. Kemp, costumes by Elizabeth Poindexter, lighting by Kent Dorsey) conjures up a world of tasteful extravagance in a few efficient and well-chosen strokes.

Saturday's cast, the first of two alternating throughout the run, did full justice to the work.

The evening's chief glory was the superb performance of soprano Jasmina Halimic in the title role, a virtuoso display of technical prowess and expressive transparency. Deploying her bright-edged and vibrant tone with utmost mastery, she let Carlson's arching vocal phrases convey everything from amorous abandon to wounded pride.

Bass Kirk Eichelberger was a splendid match as her estranged husband Karenin, singing potently and embodying the character's blend of stuffiness and sympathy.

Baritone Krassen Karagiozov cut a vague and slightly underpowered figure as Vronsky, Anna's lover, but there were excellent contributions from tenor Christopher Bengochea as the heedlessly high-spirited Oblonsky, from tenor Michael Dailey and soprano Khori Dastoor as Levin and his young wife, Dolly, and from soprano Heather McFadden as the old nurse Agafia Mihailovna.